Last week, I wrote on the risk associated with using growth as the major indicator of church health. I also expound on this idea in my latest book, Subversive Kingdom. That excerpt is below.
Also, you can check out this post for more about the book including video, the smartphone app, audio versions, and opportunites to get the book for free.
We tend to think big is good, and bigger is better. When something is big--a church, a business, a movie, a movement--good things must be going on. Size is a sure sign of success.
I've spoken at dozens of the largest churches in America-- several with more than ten thousand in attendance. These churches have all the marks that make people think they are successful. Yet ironically, the best of those megachurches are not fooled by their own size. They know that the small interaction of disciples, lives, and groups is what makes their life together matter.
But that's what makes the kingdom of God so baffling and backward-sounding to most people. Successful kingdom activity doesn't have to come with brisk retail sales, a snazzy logo, celebrity endorsements, and a marketing campaign. It doesn't have to generate ten million user hits or get written up in Newsweek. In fact, it's often just the opposite. Kingdom work is typically most recognizable by how small it is.
The kingdom is like a mustard seed, Jesus said (Matt. 13:31-32). You seen one? You may keep a little jar of them in your spice rack at home. They're tiny. They're nondescript.
In our Subversive Kingdom small-group curriculum that accompanies this book, we shot video about this (and the other parables). We brought along some mustard seeds to illustrate the point of the small seed. My job was to hold them so all could see. The only problem? The seeds were too small. So in the video I held a handful to make the point--that's small.
The kingdom is also like yeast (v. 33)--another household item that hides behind the much larger items on your pantry shelf. A person who didn't know any better would think it was just some sort of dust or powder. Nothing special. Probably unnecessary.
But something significant is happening here with mustard seeds and yeast. And whatever it is, it's not going to stay small for long.
As agents of transformation in God's subversive kingdom, we don't have to apologize for being few in number, focusing on one little area or need around us, making what seems to be a small impact. Our King's own teaching tells us not to be thrown off or discouraged by worldly perspectives that minimize what we're doing or try to stop us from getting started altogether, making us perceive our kingdom work as being too insignificant to matter.
Small strides are actually God's deliberate design for effective growth. It's how his kingdom happens. Jesus was born in a manger in a little town on the backside of nowhere, and today more than a billion people on the planet consider themselves His followers. That's kingdom economy. A mustard seed "becomes a tree, so that the birds of the sky come and nest in its branches" (v. 32). Little by little it produces shocking, unexpected growth until "birds of every kind will nest under it"-- representing all the nations of the world--"taking shelter in the shade of its branches" (Ezek. 17:23).
Eric Geiger, until recently at Christ Fellowship Church in Miami (and now my colleague at LifeWay), explained this verse in the context of their church. God has blessed their growth to more than seven thousand people each week. They have resources and reach beyond most churches. They've become a "tree, so that the birds of the sky come and nest in its branches" (Matt. 13:32). They seek to serve the community so that others might "take shelter" in the ministries of the church. Each small group, for example, is challenged to participate in mission projects designed to serve the community. They believe the communities surrounding each campus should benefit from the church's presence in that particular context.
That's subversive. That's a turn back against the flow of culture in both the religious and irreligious sectors. Christ Fellowship is not focused merely on getting the city of Miami to attend their church (although no one would argue if they did). Christ Fellowship is obsessed with getting the people of their church into the city. That's counterintuitive to even we church people who have reduced the mission of God to Sunday morning attendance.
Again, this doesn't mean the kingdom is going to overtake the enemy completely during this age. The time when Christ will visibly rule "from sea to sea and from the Euphrates to the ends of the earth" (Ps. 72:8) is awaiting the chosen moment of his return when all will look around and know that "the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Messiah, and He will reign forever and ever!" (Rev. 11:15).
But for now we plant seeds. We watch them grow. We subversively permeate a culture that only seems able to judge big things by how big they currently appear. They would never guess that at this moment the lives and activities of kingdom agents like you and me are working "like yeast that a woman took and mixed into 50 pounds of flour until it spread through all of it" (Matt. 13:33). The word for "mixed" here could also be translated "hidden." Yeast is hidden in bread dough. Once it's in there, you can't sort it back out. It's already made its subversive impact. It's already started turning a lump into a loaf. How's that for transformation?
That's what we and our churches are intended to do--not to stay in our Christian closets but to get out and mix with the confused society around us, sowing seeds through our gospel message and our acts of Christian mercy. Just as yeast can do no good for the flour if it's never pulled out of the jar, isolated believers do little of kingdom benefit if they keep themselves removed from a culture held captive to the evil one.
Your church (and mine) does not exist to keep us away from the world. Parables like this remind us of that. Yet we each experience a lot of energy pulling us the other way--to stay away from "those people" and only be with people like us. But that misses the point and ignores the parable. We are to "mix in" not so we might be like the world but that the world might know King Jesus and see his kingdom impact.
This is a kingdom secret of Jesus--one that will either land and take effect in your receptive heart or will blow by you into thin air if you're not honestly wanting to be changed, challenged, and obedient to his truth. Spiritual growth and maturity shouldn't lead us away from contact with unbelievers but rather right into the midst of them (see Christ Fellowship). We cannot subvert the kingdom of darkness by lighting nothing other than our own homes and churches. We only succeed as agents of transformation when Jesus "spreads the aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place" (2 Cor. 2:14).
Small things, subversively placed, lead to big things in God's kingdom.
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